13 May 2010 :
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed the murder conviction and death sentence of Ernest Eugene Phillips, 39, white. The panel ruled 3-0 that Phillips did not get a fair trial because the judge did not allow jurors to consider second-degree murder as a possible verdict. Second-degree murder does not carry the death penalty. Phillips was convicted of the 1996 fatal stabbing of 17-year-old Roderick Jason McFail, black.(source: Associated Press, 12/05/2010)
